Content warning: this editorial discusses racist language
Dear Mount Holyoke community,
In the second week of September, Black student organizations at the University of Massachusetts Amherst started receiving racist emails. This has since developed into an ongoing onslaught of bigotry and racist language. On Sept. 17, an email was sent to Black student organizations at UMass by a group called the UMass Coalition for a Better Society. Screenshots of the email, which contained hateful rhetoric against the existence of Black students at UMass, circulated on Twitter and Instagram. On Sept. 25, the UMass Black Student Union took to social media to condemn these emails and share their experience since the start of the fall semester. “We are hurt. We are tired. And although we are disappointed, we are certainly not surprised,” the organization wrote. This most recent email was the latest in a growing line of bigoted acts on the UMass campus, the first of the year being an incident in late August “involving offenders driving by and yelling anti-Black racist epithets at a group of Black Students,” UMass BSU wrote on Instagram. The incident in August and the recent emails indicate a continuing need to examine the elements of UMass and other college campuses that enable racist incidents such as these to occur and go unchecked.
As the independent student newspaper at Mount Holyoke College, we condemn the racist email and events happening at UMass and stand in solidarity with the UMass Black Student Union, the other Black affinity groups on UMass’ campus and the UMass Black community. We, too, call on the UMass administration to not only acknowledge the rampant racism happening on their campus but to take firm steps to ameliorate their wrongs and prioritize the safety of all students, which, as these incidents prove, they have failed to do. We would like to offer an apology for the times we failed to use our platform to condemn these racist events, and commit ourselves to speaking out on issues like these in the future.
As Mount Holyoke students, we stand with the Black community on each of the Five College campuses and offer the Mount Holyoke News as a platform for Black students to use at this, and all times, to share your stories, opinions and demands for the College and broader community. As the Mount Holyoke student newspaper, we strive to serve all communities on our campus.
We call on President Sonya Stephens and the Mount Holyoke administration as a whole to take action against these horrific acts at UMass. The Five College Consortium is a community and it is all of our jobs to ensure that it is a safe, welcoming environment for all.
The Mount Holyoke News condemns racism in all its forms within the Five College Consortium and beyond.
— Mount Holyoke News Editorial Board